


My Heart Will Go On

by elliospagettio



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies), Titanic (1997)
Genre: F/F, Titanic!AU, endgame bechloe, i'll add characters as more chapters are put up, jesse is a dick in this but only because he's taking cal's place, kinda slow burn, this will have a happy ending because there's only so much angst i can take
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-03-25 17:44:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 16,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13839816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliospagettio/pseuds/elliospagettio
Summary: Based on the romance film 'Titanic', Beca and Chloe are thrust together in an unexpected journey over the sea towards America.Trying to keep this as canon as I can, however, the ending is going to be happy because my heart can't take the sadness.





	1. Boarding Titanic - Beca

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: I don't own Pitch Perfect, nor Titanic, as much as I want to.

The sun glares down on the gleaming white superstructure of a ship, with buff-coloured funnels that stand against the sky like the pillars of a great temple. Crewmen are moving across the deck, dwarfed by the awesome scale of the steamer. Across the glossed black paint, the name ‘Titanic’ shines bright and bold.

Southampton, England, April 10, 1912. It is almost noon on the day the ship is sailing. A crowd of hundreds blackens the pier next to Titanic like ants on a jam sandwich.

A gorgeous burgundy Renault touring car swings slightly from a loading crane and is lowered towards one of the ships’ hatches.

On the pier, horse-drawn vehicles, motorcars and lorries move slowly through the dense throng. The atmosphere is one of excitement and general giddiness; people embracing in tearful farewells, or waving and shouting ‘Bon Voyage!’ wishes to friends and relatives on the decks above.

A white Renault, leading a silver-grey Daimler-Benz, pushes through the crowd, leaving a wake in the press of people. Around the handsome cars, people are streaming to board the ship, jostling with hustling seamen and stokers, porters, and barking ‘White Star Line’ officials.

The Renault stops and the liveried driver scurries to open the door for a young, brunette woman dressed in a stunning white and purple outfit, with an enormous feathered hat. She is 18 years old and beautiful, regal of bearing, with piercing dark blue eyes.

She looks up at the ship, taking it in with cool appraisal.

“I don’t see what all the fuss is about. It doesn’t look any bigger than the Mauretania,” the young woman says.

A personal valet opens the door on the other side of the car for Jesse Swanson, the 26-year-old heir to the elder Swanson’s fortune. Jesse is handsome, arrogant and rich beyond meaning.

“You can be blasé about some things, Beca, but not about Titanic. It’s over a hundred feet longer than Mauretania and far more luxurious. It has squash courts, a Parisian café… even Turkish baths,” he boasts.

Jesse turns and offers his hand to Beca’s stepmother, Sheila Dewitt-Mitchell, who descends from the touring car with him. Sheila is a society empress in her early forties, from one of the most prominent Philadelphia families. She is a widow and ruled her household with an iron will.

“Your daughter is much too hard to impress, Shelia,” the handsome man exclaims exasperatedly. He indicates a puddle on the pavement. “Mind your step.”

Sheila gazes at the Titanic, a wondrous leviathan. 

“So, this is the ship they say is unsinkable,” she waves in the ship’s direction.

Jesse’s eyes light up. “It is unsinkable. God himself couldn’t sink this ship,” he speaks, with the pride of a host providing a special experience.

The entire entourage of rich Americans is impeccably turned out, a quintessential example of the Edwardian upper class, complete with servants. Jesse’s valet, Donald Lovejoy, is tall and relatively impassive, and as dour as an undertaker. Behind him emerge, two maids, personal servants to Sheila and Beca.

A ‘White Star Line’ porter scurries toward them, harried-looking by last minute loading.

“Sir, you’ll have to check your baggage through the main terminal, just ‘round that way-“

Jesse nonchalantly hands the young man a fiver. The porter’s eyes dilate. Five pounds was a monster tip these days.

“I put my faith in you, good sir,” he pats the porter’s shoulder. Jesse then nods his head curtly, indicating Donald. “See my man.”

The porter almost jumps into action.

“Yes, sir. My pleasure, sir.”

Jesse never tires of the effect of money on the unwashed masses.

Donald points to the porter. “These trunks here, and twelve more in the Daimler. We’ll have this lot up in the rooms.”

The ‘White Star’ man looks stricken when he sees the enormous pile of steamer trunks and suitcases loading down the second car, including wooden crates and a steel safe. He whistles frantically for some cargo-handlers nearby who come running.

Jesse breezes on, leaving the minions to scramble. He quickly checks his pocket watch.

“We’d better hurry. This way, ladies,”

He indicates the way towards the first class gangway. They move into the crowd. Jessica, Beca’s maid, hustles behind them, laden with bags of her mistress’ most recent purchases… things too delicate for the baggage handlers.

Jesse leads, weaving between vehicles and handcarts, hurrying passengers (mostly second class and steerage) and well-wishes. Most of the first class passengers are avoiding the smelly press of the dockside crowd by using an elevated boarding bridge, twenty feet above.

They pass a line of steerage passengers in their coarse wool and tweeds, queued up inside movable barriers like cattle in a chute. A health officer examines their heads one by one, checking their scalps and eyelashes for lice.

They pass a well-dressed young man cranking the handle of a wooden Biograph ‘cinematograph’ camera mounted on a tripod. Benji Applebaum (whose father founded the Biograph Film Studio) is filming his young bride in front of the Titanic. Emily Applebaum-Junk stands stiffly and smiles, self-conscious. 

“Look up at the ship, darling, that’s it. You’re amazed! You can’t believe how big it is! Like a mountain. That’s great,” he smiles at her.

Emily, without an acting fibre in her body, does a bad Clara Bow pantomime of awe, hands raised.

Jesse is jostled by two yelling steerage boys who shove past him. And he is bumped again a second later by the boys’ father.

“Steady!” Jesse yells.

The young boys’ father looks back at him. 

“Sorry squire!” the man says in a Cockney accent, and pushes on after his kids, shouting.

“Steerage swine. Apparently missed his annual bath.” Jesse sneers.

“Honestly, Jesse, if you weren’t forever booking everything at the last instant, we could have gone through the terminal instead of running along the dock like some squalid immigrant family,” Sheila chastises him.

“It’s all part of my charm, Sheila. At any rate, it was my darling fiancée’s beauty rituals which made us late,” he fires back.

Beca glares at him. “You told me to change.”

“I couldn’t let you wear black on sailing day, sweetpea. It’s bad luck,” Jesse croons.

The beautiful brunette looks away. “I felt like black,” she grumbles.

Jesse guides them out of the path of a horse-drawn wagon loaded down with two tons of ‘Oxford Marmalade’, in wooden cases for Titanic Victualling Department.

“I’ve pulled every string I could to book us on the grandest ship in history, in her most luxurious suites… and you act as if you’re heading to your execution,” he exclaims.

Beca looks up as the hull of Titanic looms over them… a great iron wall, jet black and severe. Jesse motions her forward, and she enters the gangway to the D deck doors with a sense of overwhelming dread.

‘They call this the ‘Ship of Dreams’. It’s more like a slave ship; taking me back to America in chains.’ she bites her lip as she thinks.

Jesse’s hand closes possessively over Beca’s arm. He escorts her up the gangway and the black hull of Titanic swallows them.

To the people around her, Beca was everything a well brought up girl should be. Inside, however, she was screaming.

The mighty triple steams horns on the ship’s funnels release a screaming blast, bellowing their departure warning as the upper-class group travel through Titanic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! This is my first Bechloe fanfiction, so if it sucks I'm really sorry.   
> I'm attempting to keep it as canon as possible, although I am going to be changing certain things around to match the characters slightly better.  
> I've already decided that this isn't going to end in the tragedy that the original ends in because I'm honestly not sure if my heart would be able to take it.  
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy, and I'll try to update this as often as I write it!


	2. Boarding Titanic - Chloe

From the window in the smoky pub, the view of Titanic was several blocks away, towering above the buildings like the skyline of a city. The steamer’s whistle echoes across Southampton. 

Inside the pub, surrounded by dockworkers and ships’ crew, a poker game is in progress. Two young women and two men, in working-class clothes, play a very serious hand.

Chloe Beale and Aubrey Posen, both 20 years old, exchange a glance at the other two players argue in Swedish. They are American citizens; Chloe is of average height, with fiery red hair covering her shoulders. Her clothes are a little rumpled from sleeping in them. She is an artist and has adopted the bohemian style of art seen in Paris. She is also very sure-footed for a young woman of 20, has been living on her own with Aubrey since she was 15.

The two Swedish men continue their sullen argument in Swedish.

“Du dumma fiskhuvud. Jag kan inte tro att du satsar på våra biljetter!” one of the men, Olaf, growled at his partner.

“Du förlorade våra pengar. Jag försöker bara få tillbaka det. Stäng nu och ta ett kort.” his partner, Sven, snaps back.

Chloe focuses in on the game itself. “Hit me again, Sven,” she says jauntily.

The redhead takes the card and slips it into her hand, studying them. She looks back up at the two men, her eyes betraying nothing.

Aubrey bites her lip nervously as she refuses her card. The blonde looks down at the table.

There is a stack in the middle of the table. There are bills and coins from four different countries. This game has been going on a while. Sitting on top of the money are two third-class tickets for ‘RMS Titanic’.

The Titanic’s whistle blows again. Final warning.

Chloe smirks. “It’s the moment of truth, guys. Somebody’s life is about to change.”

Aubrey puts her cards down. So do the two men. Chloe holds hers close.

“Let’s see… Aubrey’s got niente. Olaf, you’ve got squat. Sven, uh oh… two pairs… hmm,” the redhead turns to her best friend. “Sorry, Aubrey.”

“What do you mean, sorry?! What have you got? Did you lose our money? I swear to god, Beale, I-“

Chloe grins. 

“Sorry, because you’re not going to see this place again for a long, long time…” she slaps a full house down on the table. “Because we’re going to America! Full house!”

Aubrey shouts in delight.

The table explodes into shouting in different languages. Chloe rakes in the money and the tickets. She looks towards to boys.

“Sorry boys. Three of a kind and a pair. I’m high, you’re dry, and-“ the redhead looks towards Aubrey. “We’re going to…”

“America!!” They both shout in happiness.

Olaf, the larger Swedish man, balls up one huge farmer’s fist. For a moment, it looks as though he’s going to hit Chloe, but he swings around and punches Sven, who flops back onto the floor and sits there, looking depressed. Olaf forgets about Chloe and Aubrey, who are dancing around, and begins to rapidly slap the daylight out of his stupid cousin.

Chloe kisses the tickets, then grabs Aubrey’s arm and runs them around the pub. It’s like they won the lottery.

“We’re going home… to the land of the free and the home of real hot-dogs! On the Titanic! We’re going to be riding in high style now! We’re practically royalty, my friend!” the bubbly young woman laughs.

The blonde grins. “You said we would win! I never should’ve doubted you! We’re going back to America!” she turns to the pub keeper. “We’re going to America!”

He gives them a pointed look. “Not unless you hurry, ladies. Titanic is going to America. In… five minutes.”

Shocked, Chloe looks at the time.

“Shit! Come on, Aubrey!” she rushes around, grabbing their stuff. “Come on!”

As they run for the door, Chloe shouts.

“It’s been grand, everyone!”

The pub keeper shakes his head.

\---

Chloe and Aubrey, carrying everything they own in the world in the kit bags on their shoulders, sprint towards the pier. They tear through milling crowds next to the terminal.

Shouts go up behind them as they accidentally jostle some slow-moving gentlemen. They dodge piles of luggage and weave through groups of people. They burst out onto the pier and Chloe comes to a dead stop, staring at the iron-cast wall of the ship’s hull, towering seven stories above the wharf and over an eighth of a mile long. The Titanic is monstrous.

Aubrey runs back and grabs the redhead, and they sprint towards the third class gangway, at E deck. They reach the bottom of the ramp just as a grumpy-looking officer detaches it at the top. It starts to swing down from the gangway doors.

Chloe sees this and waves to get the officer’s attention.

“Wait! We’re passengers!” flushed and panting, she waves the tickets.

The officer looks at them wearily. “Have you been through the inspection queue?”

The bubbly young woman smiles cheerfully, lying through her teeth.

“Of course! Anyway, we don’t have lice, we’re Americans.” She offers.

Testily, the officer waves to them to come aboard. He has the quartermaster reattach the gangway. Chloe and Aubrey come aboard. The officer glances at the tickets then pass Chloe and Aubrey through to the quartermaster, who takes their tickets to add them to the passenger list.

“Your names, please?”

“Beale. Oh, and Posen,” Chloe says, pointing at Aubrey.

The quartermaster writes their names down and turns away. The redhead grabs her friends’ arm as they whoop with the victory, running down the white-painted corridor, grinning from ear to ear.

“We are the luckiest idiots in the world!” she laughs happily.

The mooring lines, as big around as a street light pole, are dropped into the water. A cheer goes up on the pier as the Titanic pulls away from the quay.

\---

Chloe and Aubrey burst through a door onto the aft well deck. They run across the deck and up the steep stairs to the deck. They get to the rail and Chloe starts to yell and wave to the crowd on the dock.

Aubrey looks at her quizzically. “Do you know somebody?”

Chloe shakes her head. “Of course not. That’s not the point. Goodbye! Goodbye! I’ll miss you!”

Grinning, Aubrey joins in, adding her voice to the swell of voices, feeling the exhilaration of the moment.

“Goodbye! I will never forget you!”

The crowd of cheering well-wishers wave heartily as a black wall of metal moves past them. Impossibly tiny figures wave back from the ship’s rails. Titanic gathers speed.

The bow wave spreads before the mighty plough of the liner’s hull as it moves down the River Test, towards the English Channel.

\---

Chloe and Aubrey walk down a narrow corridor with doors lining both sides, like a college dorm. There is total confusion as people argue over luggage in several languages or wander in confusion in the labyrinth. They pass emigrants studying the signs over doors and looking up the words in phrase books.

They find their berth. It is a modest room, painted enamel white, with four bunks. Exposed gleaming pipes overhead. Two other women are already there, presumably the Swedish men’s family.

Chloe throws her kit on one open bunk, while Aubrey takes the other.

The women look at the two ‘intruders’, confused. One speaks.

“Var är Sven?”

The other woman shrugs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Yes, I've decided to have Chloe take Jack's place in this story. I was originally going to have her in Rose's place, but then at the last minute decided against it.  
> I hope it doesn't bite me in the ass later on.  
> Oh, I've also made Aubrey Chloe's friend, instead of adding an Italian character. So there is some canon divergence there, as there's no suspicion of her being foreign.   
> Anyway, hope you are enjoying and I'll keep adding chapters as often as I can!


	3. The Ship of Dreams Sets Sail

By contrast, the so-called ‘Millionaire Suite’ is in the Empire style, and comprises two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a large sitting room. There’s a private fifty-foot promenade deck attached outside as well.

A room service waiter pours champagne into a tulip glass of orange juice and hands the Bucks Fizz to Beca. She is looking through her new paintings. There is a Monet of water lilies, a Degas of dancers, and a few abstract works. They are all unknown paintings… lost works.

Jesse is out on the covered deck, which has potted trees and vines on trellises, talking through the doorway to Beca in the sitting room.

“Those mud puddles were certainly a waste of money,” he claims.

Beca looks towards the cubist portraits. “You’re wrong. They’re fascinating. Like in a dream… there’s truth without logic. What’s his name again..?”

She looks at the bottom of the canvas, reading the name hastily sketched at the bottom.

“Picasso.”

Jesse walks into the sitting room. “He’ll never amount to a thing, trust me. At least they were cheap.”

A porter wheels Jesse’s private safe into the room on a hand truck.

The rich man points towards the bedroom. “Put that in the wardrobe,” he asks efficiently.

Beca enters the bedroom with the large Degas of the dancers. She sets it on the dresser, near the canopy bed. Jessica is already in there, hanging up some of Beca’s clothes. She smiles at her mistress.

“It smells so brand new. Like they built it all just for us. I mean… just to think that tonight, when I crawl between the sheets, I’ll be the first-“

Jesse appears in the doorway of the bedroom. Looking to Beca, he smirks.

“And when I crawl between the sheets tonight, I’ll also be the first.”

Jessica blushes and the innuendo mumbles something about needing to be somewhere and makes a quick exit around Jesse. The arrogant man comes up behind Beca and puts his hands on her shoulders. An act of possession, not intimacy.

“The first and only, forever.” He mutters into her ear.

Beca’s expression shows just how bleak a prospect this is for her, now.

\---

Titanic stands silhouetted against a purple post-sunset sky. She is lit up like a floating palace, and her thousand portholes reflect in the calm harbour waters. The 150-foot tender Nomadic lies-to alongside, looking somewhat like a rowboat. The lights of Cherbourg harbour complete the postcard image.

Entering the first-class reception room from the tender are a number of prominent passengers. A broad-shouldered woman in an enormous feathered hat comes up to the gangway, carrying a suitcase in each hand, a spindly porter running to catch up with her to take the bags.

She looks towards him. “Well, I wasn’t about to wait all day for you, sonny. Take them the rest of the way if you think you can manage. 

At Cherbourg, a woman came aboard named Alice Brown, but she was more commonly known as Molly. Her husband had struck gold someplace out west, and she was what Beca’s mother would call ‘new money’. At 35, Alice Brown is a tough-talking straight shooter who dresses in the finery of her genteel peers but will never be one of them.

By the next afternoon, Titanic had made its final stop and was steaming west from the coast of Ireland, with nothing ahead but the ocean.

\---

The ship glows with the warm creamy light of late afternoon. Chloe and Aubrey stand right at the bow gripping the curving railing. Chloe leans over, looking down fifty feet to where the prow cuts the surface like a knife, sending up two glassy sheets of water.

On the bridge, Captain Smith turns from the binnacle to the first officer, William Murdoch.

“Take her to sea, Mister Murdoch. Let’s stretch her legs.” In response to the captain’s orders, Murdoch moves the engine telegraph lever to ‘All Ahead Full’.

In the engine room, the telegraph clangs and moves to ‘All Ahead Full’. The chief engineer, Bell, commands his team.

“All ahead full, boys!”

On the catwalk, Thomas Andrews, the shipbuilder, watches carefully as the engineers and greasers scramble to adjust the valves. Towering above them are the twin reciprocating engines, four stories tall, their ten-foot-long connecting rods surging up and down with the turning of the massive crankshafts. The engines thunder like the footfalls of marching giants.

In the boiler rooms, the stokers chant a song as they hurl coal into the roaring furnaces. The ‘Black Gang’ are covered with sweat and coal dust, their muscles working like part of the machinery as they toil in the hellish glow.

Underwater, the enormous bronze screws chop through the water, hurling the steamer forward and churning up a vortex of foam that lingers for miles behind the juggernaut ship. Smoke pours from the funnels.

The riven water flares higher at the bow as the ship’s speed builds. Chloe laughs by the rail, the wind streaming through her hair.

Captain Smith steps out of the enclosed bridge onto the wing. He stands with his hands on the rail, looking every bit the storybook picture of a captain… a great patriarch of the sea. A shout comes from behind him.

“Twenty-one knots, sir!” the first officer announces.

Captain Smith chuckles. “She’s got a bone in her teeth now, eh, Mister Murdoch?”

The Captain accepts a cup of tea from one of the other officers. He contentedly watches the white V of water hurled outward from the bow like an expression of his own power.

They are invulnerable, towering over the sea.

At the bow, Chloe and Aubrey lean far over, looking down.

In the glassy bow-wave, two dolphins appear, under the water, swimming fast just in front of the steel blade of the prow. They do it for the sheer joy and exultation of motion.

Chloe watches the dolphins and grins. They breach, jumping clear of the water and then dive back, crisscrossing in front of the bow, dancing ahead of the steamship.

Aubrey looks forward across the Atlantic, staring into the sun sparkles. She grins at her redheaded friend.

“I can see the Statue of Liberty already. Well, very small… of course.” 

Chloe laughs at her friends' antics. She’s never felt more alive, than in this moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I only uploaded this yesterday, but I haven't been able to stop writing! It's a story that's been at the back of my head for a while now, and I'd find myself thinking about it in my boring ass Spanish class.   
> Jesse is kind of a massive dick in this, but only because he's taking Cal's place, and he IS a massive douche.   
> I'm also using quite a lot of the original Titanic characters, simply because I don't feel that most of the Pitch Perfect cast would fit some of the roles, e.g. the captain and such. I'm trying to add in as many as I think will work, but in the end, it is mainly focused on Beca and Chloe.  
> Anyway, until next time!


	4. The First Encounter

“…She is the largest moving object ever made by the hand of man in all history, and our master shipbuilder, Mister Andrews here, designed her from the keel plates up,” announces the managing director of ‘White Star Line’, Bruce Ismay. He indicates a handsome 39-year-old Irish gentleman to his right, Thomas Andrews, of Harland and Wolf Shipbuilders.

The small group was assembled for lunch the next day. Ismay is seated with Jesse, Beca, Sheila, Alice Brown and Thomas Andrews in the Palm Court, a beautiful sunny spot enclosed by high arched windows.

Andrews, disliking the attention, speaks up. “Well, I may have knocked her together, but the idea was Mister Ismay’s. He envisioned a steamer so grand in scale, and so luxurious in its appointments, that its supremacy would never be challenged. And here she is, willed into solid reality.” 

He taps the table twice, fondly.

Alice scoffs. “Why’re ships always being called ‘she’? Is it because men think half the women around have big sterns and should be weighed in tonnage?”

The table laughs at the joke.

She continues. “Just another example of men setting the rules their way,” she sighs. 

The waiter arrives to take orders as Beca lights a cigarette.

Sheila frowns. “You know I don’t like that, Rebecca.”

Jesse looks over at what the older woman is referring to. 

“She knows,” he states as he takes the cigarette from her and stubs it out. The young man then turns to the waiter. “We’ll both have the lamb. Rare, with a little mint sauce.”

The waiter nods and moves away. Jesse turns to Beca, a sickly sweet smile on his face.

“You like lamb, don’t you sweetpea?”

Alice is watching the dynamic between Beca, Jesse and Sheila.

“So, you going to cut her meat for her too there, Jesse?” she asks. Jesse drops her gaze, somewhat infuriated.

Alice chuckles and turns towards Ismay.

“Hey, who came up with the name Titanic? You, Bruce?”

He smiles. “Yes, actually. I wanted to convey her sheer size. And size means stability, luxury, and safety-“

Beca cuts in, a slight edge to her voice.

“Do you know of Doctor Freud? His ideas about the male preoccupation with size might be of particular interest to you, Mister Ismay.”

Andrews chokes on his breadstick, suppressing his laughter.

Sheila's head snaps over to her stepdaughter, with a shocked expression on her face.

“My God, Beca, what’s gotten into-“

Beca rises from the table. “Excuse me,” she snaps as she stalks away.

Mortified, Sheila turns to the rest of the group. “I do apologise.”

Molly laughs at the young woman’s antics.

“She’s a pistol, Jesse. You sure you can handle her?”

Jesse laughs nervously, tense but feigning unconcern. 

“Well, I may have to start minding what she reads from now on.”

\---

Chloe sits on a bench in the sun. Titanic’s wake spreads out behind her to the horizon. She has her knees pulled up, supporting a leather-bound sketching pad, her only valuable possession. With a rich graphite stick, she draws rapidly, using sure strokes. An immigrant from Manchester named Bumper has his three-year-old daughter Cora standing on the lower rung of the rail. She is leaned back against his torso, watching the seagulls.

The sketch captures them perfectly, with a great sense of the humanity of the moment. Chloe is good. Really good. Aubrey looks over Chloe’s shoulder. She nods appreciatively.

Tom Ryan, a scowling young Irish emigrant, watches as a crewmember comes by, walking three small dogs around the deck. One of them, a black French bulldog, is among the oddest-looking creatures on the planet. The Irish man scoffs.

“That’s typical. First class dogs come down here to take a shit.”

Chloe looks up from her sketch. “That’s so we know where we rank in the scheme of things,” she smiles.

Tom laughs. “Like we could forget.”

Chloe glances across the good deck. At the aft railing of the B deck promenade stands Beca, in a long yellow dress and white gloves.

Chloe’s heart feels like it stops for a second, unable to take her eyes off of her. They are across from each other, about 60 feet apart, with the good deck like a valley between them. She on her promontory, the redhead herself on a much lower one. She stares down at the water.

Chloe watches her unpin her elaborate hat and take it off. She looks down at the frilly absurd thing, then tosses it over the rail. It sails far down to the water and is carries away by the waves. A spot of yellow in the vast ocean. She is riveted by her. She looks like a figure in a romantic novel, sad and isolated.

Aubrey taps Tom and they both look at Chloe gazing at Beca. Aubrey and Tom grin at each other.

Beca turns suddenly and looks right at Chloe. She is caught staring, but she doesn’t look away. The brunette does but then looks back. Their eyes meet across the space of the good deck, across the gulf between worlds.

Chloe sees a handsome man come up behind her and take her arm. She jerks her arms away. They argue in pantomime. She storms away, and he goes after her, disappearing along the A deck promenade. Chloe stares after her.

Tom shakes her. “Forget it. You’d have to have angels flying out of your ass to get the likes of her.”

Chloe blinks, barely registering what the Irish man says. All she can think about is the steel blue eyes that had connected with hers.

\---

Flanked by people in a heated conversation, Beca is sitting in her seat in the first class dining saloon. Jesse and Sheila are laughing together, while on the other side the rich men were listening to a story Alice was animatedly telling them. The brunette can barely hear them. She is staring at her plate, not listening to the inconsequential babble around her.  
She was seeing her whole life as if she had already lived it… an endless parade of parties and cotillions, yachts and polo matches… always the same narrow people, the same mindless chatter. She felt like she was standing on a great cliff, with no one to pull her back, no one who cared… or even noticed.

Beca was holding a tiny fork from her crab salad. She pokes the crab fork into the skin of her arm, harder and harder until it draws blood.

\---

Later on, she leaves dinner early again.

Beca walks along the corridor. A steward coming the other way greets her, and she nods with a slight smile. She is perfectly composed.

She enters her bedroom; standing in the middle, staring at her reflection in the large vanity mirror. Just standing there, until- 

With an almost primal, anguished cry she grips the pearl necklace around her throat, ripping it off making the little pearls explode across the room. In a frenzy, she tears at herself, her clothes, her hair, and then attacks the room. She flings everything off of the dresser and it flies, clattering against the wall. She hurls a hand-mirror against the vanity, cracking it.

Escaping the confines of her room, Beca runs along the B deck promenade. She is dishevelled, her hair flying. She is crying, her cheeks streaked with tears. But not from being upset; the brunette feels angry, furious.

Shaking with emotions she doesn’t understand… hatred, self-hatred, and desperation. A strolling couple watches her pass, shocked at the emotional display in public.

\---

Chloe is relaxing on one of the benches, gazing at the stars blazing gloriously overhead; thinking artists’ thoughts and smoking a cigarette.

Hearing something, she turns as Beca runs up the stairs from the good deck. They are the only two on the stern deck, except for the quartermaster that checked her name onto the passenger list when she boarded the steamer, who was twenty feet above them on the docking bridge catwalk. Beca doesn’t see Chloe in the shadows and runs right past her.

The brunette runs across the deserted fantail. Her breath hitches in an occasional sob, which she suppresses. Beca slams against the base of the stern flagpole and clings there, panting. She stares out at the black water.

After a moment, she starts to climb over the railing. She has to hitch her long dress way up, and the climbing is clumsy. Moving methodically she turns her body and gets her heels the white-painted gunwale, her back to the railing, facing out towards blackness. 60 feet below her, the massive propellers are churning the Atlantic into white foam, and a ghostly wake trails off towards the horizon.

Beca is standing like a figurehead in reverse. Below her are the huge letters of the name ‘Titanic’.

She leans out, her arms straightening… looking down hypnotised, into the vortex below her. Her dress and hair are lifted by the wind of the ship’s movement. The only sound, above the rush of water below, is the flutter and snap of the big Union Jack right above her.

She closes her eyes.

And snaps them open again as she hears a voice.

“Don’t do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! They've finally met!  
> I've realised that I haven't really described what Chloe and Aubrey are wearing so far. The dresses they're wearing are mainly simple, in a clean, khaki colour. I would dress them up a little more, however, they are supposed to be working class.  
> Until next time!


	5. Have you ever been to Wisconsin?

“Don’t do it.”

Beca whips her head around at the sound of the redhead’s voice. It takes a second for her eyes to focus.

“Stay back! Don’t come any closer!” she tells her.

Chloe sees the tear tracks on her cheeks in the faint glow of the stern running lights.

She connects her eyes with the distraught woman in front of her. “Take my hand. I’ll pull you back in,” she says as she offers her hand.

The brunette stays where she is. “No! Stay where you are. I mean it. I’ll let go.”

Chloe studies her for a moment.

“…No, you won’t,” she says with a hint of a smirk edging around the corner of her lips.

Beca looks back at her incredulously. “What do you mean, ‘No I won’t’? Don’t presume to tell me what I will and will not do. You don’t know me,”

“You would have done it already. Now come on, take my hand.”

Beca is confused now. She can’t see her very well through the tears, so she wipes them with one hand, almost losing her balance.

“You’re distracting me. Go away,”

Chloe breathes in, looking to the right exasperatedly. “I can’t. I’m involved now. If you let go I have to jump in after you,” she says with a small smile, looking back at Beca.

The brunette scoffs. “Don’t be absurd. You’ll be killed.”

Chloe begins to take off the cardigan she is wearing.

“I’m a good swimmer.”

She starts unlacing her left shoe.

Beca looks at her pointedly. “The fall alone would kill you,” she says to the older woman.

The redhead shrugs. “It would hurt. I’m not saying it wouldn’t. To be honest I’m a lot more concerned about the water being so cold.”

The richer girl looks down. The reality factor of what she is doing is sinking in.

She looks back to Chloe. “How cold?”

Taking off her left shoe, Chloe replies. 

“Freezing. Maybe a couple degrees over,” As she continues, she begins to unlace her right shoe. “Have you ever been to Wisconsin?”

Beca looks perplexed. “No?”

Chloe stands back up straight and smiles.

“Well, they have some of the coldest winters around. I grew up there, near Chippewa Falls. Once when I was a kid, me and my father were ice-fishing out on Lake Wissota… ice-fishing is where you chop a hole in the-“

“I know what ice-fishing is!” Beca cuts her off.

Chloe backtracks slightly, but not backing down. “Sorry, just… you look like kind of an indoor girl. Anyway. I went through some thin ice and I’m telling you, water that cold… like right down there… it hits you like a thousand knives all over your body. You can’t breathe, you can’t think… at least not about anything except the pain.” She takes off her other shoe. “Which is why I’m not looking forward to jumping in after you. But like I said, I don’t see a choice. I guess I’m kinda hoping you’ll come back over the rail and get me off the hook here.”

The brunette smiles slightly. “You’re crazy.”

“That’s what everybody says. But with all due respect, I’m not the one hanging off the back of a ship.”

She slides one step closer, like moving up on a spooked horse.

“Come on. You don’t want to do this. Give me your hand.”

Beca stares at this madwoman for a long time. She looks into her crystal blue eyes and they somehow suddenly seem to fill her universe.

“Alright.”

She unfastens one hand from the rail and reaches it around towards her. Chloe reaches out to take it, firmly.

“I’m Chloe Beale.”

The brunette smiles and with a quavering voice, responds. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Beale.”

She begins to turn. Now that she has decided to live, the height is terrifying. She is overcome by vertigo as she shifts her footing, turning to face the ship. As she starts to climb, her dress gets in the way, and one foot slips off the edge of the deck.

She plunges, letting out a piercing shriek. Chloe, gripping her hand, is jerked towards the rail. Beca barely grabs the lower rail with her free hand.

The quartermaster on watch up on the docking bridge hears the scream and heads for the ladder.

“Shit! Help! Help!!” She screams.

“I’ve got you. I won’t let go,” Chloe shouts down to her.

Chloe holds her hand with all her strength, bracing herself on the railing with her other hand. Beca tries to get some kind of foothold on the smooth hull. Chloe tries to lift her bodily, over the railing. She can’t get any footing in her dress without shoes, and she slips back. Beca screams again.

Chloe, awkwardly clutching Beca by whatever she can get a grip on as she flails, gets her over the railing. They fall together onto the deck in a tangled heap, spinning in such a way that Chloe winds up on top of her.

The quartermaster slides down the ladder from the docking bridge like it’s a fire drill and sprints across the fantail.

“Here, what’s all this?!” he yells.

He runs up and pulls Chloe off of Beca, revealing her dishevelled and sobbing on the deck. Her dress is torn, and the hem is pushing up above her knees, showing one ripped stocking. He looks at Chloe, the slightly less dishevelled steerage woman with her cardigan off, and the first class lady clearly in distress, and starts drawing conclusions. Two seamen chug across the deck to join them.

The quartermaster turns to the redhead. “Here you, stand back! Don’t move an inch!” He then turns to the seamen. “Fetch the Master at Arms.”

\---

A few minutes later, Chloe is being detained by the burly Master at Arms, the closest thing to a cop on board. He is handcuffing Chloe. Jesse is right in front of the redhead, and furious. He has obviously just rushed out here with Donald and another man, and none of them have coats over their black-tie evening dress. The other man is Colonel Archibald Gracie, a moustachioed blowhard who still has his brandy snifter. He offers it to Beca, who is hunched over crying on a bench nearby, but she waves it away. Jesse is more concerned with Chloe. He grabs her by the shoulders.

“What made you think you could put your hands on my fiancée?! Look at me, you filth! What did you think you were doing?!” he yells at the woman.

The brunette jumps up and joins them. “Jesse, stop! It was an accident.”

The arrogant man looks at her incredulously. “An accident?!”

She nodded. “It was… stupid really. I was leaning over and I slipped.” 

Beca looks at Chloe, making eye contact.

“I was leaning way over, to see them… ah… propellers. I slipped, and I would have gone overboard. Miss Beale here saved me and she almost went over herself.” she ‘explains’.

Jesse looks at her. “You wanted to see the propellers?”

Colonel Gracie shakes his head. 

“Women and machinery do not mix,” he says.

The Master at Arms turns to look at Chloe. “Was that the way of it?”

Chloe looks to Beca. She is begging her with her eyes not to say what really happened.

The redhead nods. “Uh huh. That was pretty much it.”

She looks over to Beca a moment longer. Now they have a secret together.

Colonel Gracie smiles. “Well! The girl’s a hero then. Good for you, well done!”

He turns to Jesse.

“So, it’s all well and back to our brandy, eh?” he asks.

Chloe is uncuffed as Jesse gets Beca to her feet and moving.

Jesse rubs her arms, to which the brunette doesn’t look too comfortable. “Let’s get you in. You’re freezing.”

He is leaving without a second thought for Chloe.

Gracie leans towards Jesse, his voice low. “Ah… perhaps a little something for the girl?”

“Oh, right. Donald, a twenty should do it.” He says flippantly.

Beca scoffs. “Is that the going rate for saving the woman you ‘love’?”

Jesse looks at her. 

“Rebecca is displeased. Mmm… what to do?”

The rich man turns back to Chloe. He appraises her condescendingly… a steerage ‘ruffian’, hair slightly mussed from the confrontation and rather ill-mannered, in terms of first class.

“I know.” He clicks his fingers and turns to the redhead.

“Perhaps you could join us for dinner tomorrow, to regale our group with your heroic tale?” he asks, a glint in his eyes.

Looking straight at Beca, Chloe agrees. “Sure. Count me in.”

“Good. That’s settled then.” Jesse turns to go, putting a protective arm around a reluctant Beca. He leans close to Gracie as they walk away.

“This should be amusing,” he mutters.

As Donald passes, he points down to her shoes. “You’ll want to tie those.”

Chloe looks down.

“Interesting, that the young lady slipped so mighty all of a sudden and you still had time to take off your cardigan and shoes. Hmm?”

Donald’s expression is bland, but his eyes are twinkling. He winks and turns away to join his group.

Nobody notices as Beca turns around to look at Chloe one more time, before being escorted inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm shocked as to how quickly I'm writing this!  
> Just a note to say that in this AU I'm just pretending that homophobia isn't like, a thing, so Chloe "putting her hands on Beca" isn't out of the ordinary in that sense.  
> Until next time!


	6. So, do you have a name?

Back in her bedroom, Beca undresses for bed. She sees Jesse standing in her doorway, reflected in the cracked mirror of her vanity. He comes towards her.

“I know you’ve been melancholy, and I won’t pretend to know why,” he says, unexpectedly tender. From behind his back, he hands her a large black velvet jewel case. She takes it, numbly.

He continues explaining. “I intended to save this for the engagement gala next week. But I thought tonight, perhaps it could be a reminder of my feelings for you…”

The brunette slowly opens the box. Inside is a necklace in all its glory. It is huge, a malevolent blue stone glittering with an infinity of scalpel-like inner reflections.

“My God… Jesse. Is it a-“

“Diamond. Yes, it is. 56 carats, to be exact,” he boasts. He takes the necklace and places it around her throat. He turns her to the mirror, staring behind her.

“It was once worn by Louis the Sixteenth. They call it ‘Le Coeur de la Mer’, the-“

“The Heart of the Ocean. Jesse, it’s… it’s overwhelming.”

He gazes at the image of the two of them in the mirror. “It’s for royalty. And we are royalty.”

Beca shivers uncomfortably as his fingers caress her neck and throat. He seems to be disarmed by Beca’s elegance and beauty. His emotion is, for the first time, unguarded.

“There’s nothing I couldn’t give you. There’s nothing I’d deny you if you didn’t deny me. Open your heart to me, Beca.”

Of course, his gift was only to reflect light back onto himself, to illuminate the greatness that was Jesse Swanson. But it was a cold stone; a heart of ice.

\---

It is Saturday, April 13, 1912. Beca walks into the sunlight, stunningly dressed and walking with purpose. She unlatches the gate to go down into third class. The steerage men on the deck stop what they’re doing and stare at her.

\---

The third class general room is the social centre of steerage life. It is stark by comparison to the opulence of first class but is a loud, boisterous place. There are mothers with babies, kids running between the benches yelling in several languages and being scolded in several more. There are old women yelling, men playing chess, girls doing needlepoint and reading dime novels. There is even an upright piano and Tom Ryan is noodling around it.

Three boys, shrieking and shouting, are scrambling around chasing a rat under the benches, trying to hit it with a shoe and causing general havoc. Chloe is playing with five-year-old Cora Allen, drawing funny faces together in her sketchbook.

Aubrey is getting a conversation going with an attractive American girl, Stacie Conrad, sitting with her family at a table across the room.

The blonde stutters. “So, uh, where are you from?” 

“Oregon. It’s nice, but far from the big cities, what about y-“, Stacie stops as her eye is caught by something.

Aubrey turns, does a take… and Chloe, curious, follows their gaze to see…

Beca, coming towards them. The activity in the room stops, and a hush falls. The rich woman suddenly feels self-conscious as the steerage passengers stare openly at this princess, some with resentment, and others with awe. She spots Chloe and gives a little smile, walking straight to her. The redhead rises to meet her, smiling.

“Hello, Chloe,” the brunette greets.

Aubrey and Tom are floored. It’s like the slipper fitting Cinderella.

Chloe grins. “Hello again.”

“Could I speak to you in private?”

“Uh, yes. Of course. After you,” the bubbly woman motions her ahead and follows. Chloe glances over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised, as she walks out with her leaving a stunned silence.

\---

On the boat deck, Chloe and Beca walk side by side. They pass people reading and talking in steamer chairs, some of whom glance curiously at the mismatched couple. The redhead feels out of place in her rough clothes. They are both awkward, for different reasons.

Chloe clears her throat. “So, do you have a name, by the way?”

“Beca. Beca Dewitt-Mitchell.”

“Wow, that’s quite a name. I may have to get you to write that down,” she jokes.

There’s an awkward pause.

“Miss Beale, I-“

“Chloe.” the poorer woman corrects.

Beca nods. “Chloe… I feel like such an idiot. It took me all morning to get up the nerve to face you.”

“Well, here you are.”

The brunette laughs. “Here I am. I… I want to thank you for what you did. Not just for… for pulling me back. But for your discretion.”

“You’re welcome, Beca.” Chloe smiles.

Beca shakes her head. “Look, I know what you must be thinking. Poor little rich girl. What does she know about misery?”

“That’s not what I was thinking. What I was thinking was… ‘What could have happened to hurt this girl so much she thought she had no way out?’”

“I don’t… it wasn’t just one thing. It was everything. It was them, it was their whole world. And I was trapped in it, like an insect in amber,” she says in a rush. “I just had to get away… just run and run and run… and then I was at the back rail and there was no more ship… even the Titanic wasn’t big enough. Not enough to get away from them. And before I’d really thought about it, I was over the rail. I was so furious. ‘I’ll show them. They’ll be sorry!’”

Chloe nods. “Uh huh. They’ll be sorry. ‘Cause you’ll be dead.”

“Oh God, I am such an utter fool.” Beca lowers her head.

“That penguin last night, is he one of them?”

The brunette looks at her in confusion. “Penguin? Oh, Jesse! He is them.”

“Is he your boyfriend?”

Beca sighs. “Worse, I’m afraid.”

She shows Chloe her engagement ring. A sizeable diamond.

“God, look at that thing! You would’ve gone straight to the bottom.”

They laugh together. A passing steward scowls at Chloe, who is clearly not a first class passenger, but Beca just glares him away.

Chloe continues. “So you feel like you’re stuck on a train you can’t get off, ‘cause you’re marrying this guy?”

“Yes, exactly!”

“So… don’t marry him,” Chloe suggests as if it is simple.

Beca sighs again. “If only it was that simple.”

“It is that simple!”

The rich woman looks into cerulean eyes.

“Oh, Chloe… please don’t judge me until you’ve seen my world,” she begs.

Chloe frowns and looks away. “Well, I guess I will tonight.”

Looking for another topic, any topic, she indicates her sketchbook.

“What’s this?” Beca asks.

Chloe looks down to her sketchbook. “Just some sketches,” she says.

“May I?”

The question is rhetorical because she has already grabbed the book. She sits on a deck chair and opens the sketchbook. Each of Chloe’s sketches are an expressive little bit of humanity; an old woman’s hands, a sleeping man, a father and daughter at the rail. The faces are luminous and alive. Her book is a celebration of the human condition.

“Chloe, these are really good! Honestly, they are!” Beca exclaims.

Chloe shakes her head. “Well, they didn’t think too much of them in Paris.”

Some loose sketches fall out and are taken by the wind. The redhead scrambles after them… catching two, but the rest are gone, over the rail.

Beca looks back at the woman. “Oh no! Oh, I’m so sorry!” she says apologetically.

Chloe laughs. “It doesn’t matter. Like I said, they didn’t think too much of them is Paris,” she snaps her wrist, shaking her drawing hand in a flourish.

“I seem to just spew them out. Besides, they’re not worth a damn anyway.”

For emphasis, she throws away the two she caught. They sail off.

“You’re deranged!” The brunette laughs.

She goes back to the book, turning a page.

“Well, well…”

She has come upon a series of nudes. Beca is transfixed by the languid beauty she has created. Her nudes are soulful, real, with expressive hands and eyes. They feel more like portraits than studies of the human form… almost uncomfortably intimate. Beca blushes, raising the book as some strollers go by.

Trying to be very adult, the rich woman asks, “And these were drawn from life?”

Chloe nods. “Yep. That’s one of the great things about Paris. Lots of girls willing to take their clothes off.”

Beca smirks. She studies one drawing, in particular, the girl half posed in sunlight, half in shadow. Her hands lie at her chin, one furled and one open like a flower, languid and graceful. The drawing is like an Alfred Stieglitz print of Georgia O’Keeffe. 

She looks up at the redhead, who is watching her with a small, dopey smile of her face. “You liked this woman. You used her several times.”

Chloe’s smile gets bigger. “She had beautiful hands,” she explains.

“I think you must have had a love affair with her…” Beca suggests, smiling.

Laughing, Chloe shakes her head. 

“No, no! Just with her hands.”

The younger woman’s smile fades slightly, becoming more serious.

“You have a gift, Chloe. You do. You see people.”

Chloe looks into her eyes. “I see you.”

There it is. That piercing gaze again. Beca blushes and looks away, but looks back. “And...?”

The redhead grins. “You wouldn’t have jumped.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I'm back!  
> I'm trying to upload as often as I can at the moment because my mocks start this next week coming and I have a feeling I might slow down. I hope not because I am really enjoying this.  
> Until next time!


	7. A Moving Picture Actress

Sheila is having tea with Noel Lucy Martha Dyer-Edwardes, the Countess of Rothes, a 35-year-old English blue-blood with patrician features. Sheila sees someone coming across the room and lowers her voice.

“Oh no, that vulgar Brown woman is coming this way. Get up, quickly, before she sits with us.”

Alice Brown walks up, greeting them cheerfully as they are rising. “Hello girls, I was hoping I’d catch you at tea.”

“We’re awfully sorry you missed it. The Countess and I are just off to take the air on the boat deck,” Sheila responds quickly.

“That sounds great. Let’s go. I need to catch up on the gossip,“ the cheerful woman responds.

Beca’s stepmother grits her teeth as the three of them head for the Grand Staircase to go up. As they cross the room, the women pass Bruce Ismay and Captain Smith at another table.

Ismay frowns. “So you’ve not lit the last four boilers then?”

The captain nods. 

“No, but we’re making excellent time,” he reasons.

“Captain, the press knows the size of Titanic, let them marvel at her speed too. We must give them something new to print. And the maiden voyage of Titanic must make headlines!” Ismay tells him impatiently.

The captain looks at him wearily. “I prefer not to push the engines until they’ve been properly run in.”

“Of course I leave it to your good offices to decide what’s best, but what a glorious end to your last crossing if we get into New York Tuesday night and surprise them all,” Ismay says as he slaps the table. “Retire with a bang, eh, E.J.?”

A beat. Then Smith nods, stiffly.

\---

Beca and Chloe stroll aft, past people lounging on deck chairs in the slanting late-afternoon light. Stewards scurry to serve tea or hot cocoa.

“You know, my dream has always been to just chuck it all and become an artist… living in a garret, poor but free!” Beca says, surprisingly girlish and excited.

Chloe laughs. “You wouldn’t last two days. There’s no hot water, and hardly ever any caviar.”

The brunette’s head snaps around, angrily.

“Listen, buster… I hate caviar! And I’m tired of people dismissing my dreams with a chuckle and a pat on the head,” she growls indignantly.

The redhead looks back at her apologetically. “I’m sorry. Really… I am.”

The younger girl’s angry façade wavers. “Well, alright,” she looks back out to the sea. “There’s something in me, Chloe. I feel it. I don’t know what it is, whether I should be an artist, or, I don’t know… a musician. I always imagine mixing together different pieces and creating something even better. I would, if I knew how, of course.”

She leaps forward, lands lightly and whirls like a dervish. Chloe laughs at the silly antics.

Suddenly, Chloe sees something ahead and her face lights up.

“…Or a moving picture actress!” she suggests to Beca. 

Beca grins as she takes the older girl’s hand and runs, pulling her along the deck toward Benji and Emily Applebaum. Benji is cranking the big wooden movie camera as she poses stiffly at the rail.

“You’re sad, sad, sad. You’ve left your lover on the shore. You may never see them again. Try to be sadder, darling.” Benji tries to get Emily to pose.

Suddenly Chloe shoots into the shot and strikes a theatrical pose at the rail next to Emily. Emily bursts out laughing. Chloe pulls Beca into the picture and makes her pose.

Benji grins and starts yelling and gesturing. He takes a series of pictures:

Beca posing tragically at the rail, the back of her hand to her forehead;

Chloe on a deck chair, pretending to be a Pasha, the two girls pantomiming fanning him like slave girls;

Chloe, on her knees, pleading with her hands clasped while Beca, standing, turns her head in bored disdain;

And Beca cranking the camera, while Benji, Emily and Chloe have a western shoot-out. Chloe wins and leans close to the lens, twirling an air moustache like Snidely Whiplash.

\---

Later, painted with orange light, Chloe and Beca lean on the A deck rail aft, shoulder to shoulder. The ship’s lights come on.

It is a magical moment… perfect.

“…So then what, Miss Wandering Beale?” Beca asks with a grin on her face.

“Well, then I became bored with my family home, so I went down to Los Angeles, to the pier in Santa Monica. That’s a swell place, they even have a rollercoaster. I sketched portraits there for ten cents apiece,” Chloe says wistfully.

Beca’s eyes widen. “A whole ten cents?” she says sarcastically.

Not catching it, Chloe nods. “Yeah, it was great money… I could make a dollar a day, sometimes. But only in the summer. When it got cold, I decided to go to Paris with my best friend and see what the real artists were doing.”

The brunette looks at the dusk sky wistfully. “Why can’t I be like you, Chloe? Just head out for the horizon whenever I feel like it,” she turns to her. “Say we’ll go there, sometime… to that pier… even if we only ever just talk about it.”

Chloe looks at this woman who has opened up to her and smiles, besotted.

“Alright, we’re going. We’ll drink cheap beer and go on the rollercoaster until we throw up and we’ll ride horses on the beach… right in the surf… but you have to ride like a cowboy, none of that side-saddle stuff.”

“You mean one leg on each side? Scandalous! Will you show me?”

The redhead laughs. “Sure. If you’d like.”

“I think I would,” Beca sighs. “I wish I wasn’t chained up to that god-awful man and my oblivious family. He’s nearly ten years older than me? And he always makes me feel uncomfortable… I hate it more than anything.”

Chloe looks over at her. “This is ‘The Ship of Dreams’ right? You never know how the end of this trip will turn out.”

The younger woman smiles at her, but then suddenly she blanches. The bubbly woman sees her expression and turns.

Sheila, the Countess of Rothes, and Alice Brown have been watching their encounter, and have no doubt heard everything the two have been saying. Beca becomes instantly composed.

“Mother, may I introduce Chloe Beale,” she gestures towards the redhead.

Beca’s stepmother looks towards Chloe. She takes in the slightly rough clothes, the almost flyaway red hair, and the clear open heart; a heart that seems to be in her stepdaughter’s clutches. 

As Beca proceeds with the introductions, she notices everyone’s reactions to the girl who had saved her life. The others were gracious and curious about her, but her mother was looking at her like an insect. A dangerous insect which must be crushed quickly. 

Alice grins at Chloe. “Well, Chloe, it sounds like you’re a good girl to have around in a sticky spot-“

They all jump as a bugler sounds the meal call right behind them.

Alice groans slightly. “Why do they always insist on announcing dinner like a damn cavalry charge?” she says exasperatedly.

Beca looks towards them.

“Shall we go dress, mother?” she asks. As they walk away, she looks over her shoulder. “See you at dinner, Chloe.”

As they walk away, Sheila looks at the young woman next to her. “Rebecca, look at you… out in the sun with no hat. Honestly!”

The countess exits with Sheila and Beca, leaving Chloe and Alice alone on deck.

Alice looks towards Chloe. “Kid, do you have the slightest comprehension of what you’re doing?”

Chloe shakes her head. “Not really.”

“Well, you’re about to go into the snake pit. I hope you’re ready. What are you planning to wear?”

Chloe looks down at her clothes. Back up at her. She hadn’t thought about that.

Alice laughs. “I figured. Come on, I’ll help you out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again!  
> I've realised that I'm actually using quite a lot of original characters from Titanic, but I'm still not tagging them individually,   
> because honestly, that's so many tags.  
> Until next time!


	8. The Dinner Party

Women’s dresses, jackets and formal wear are strewn all over the place. Alice is having a fine time. Chloe is dressed, except for a jacket, into a beautiful blue dress which accentuates her eyes, and Alice is working a flower into her hair. She smiles at the younger woman.

“Don’t feel bad about it. Most of the time I can’t sort out all of these damn clips on different dresses myself. There you go.”

She picks a matching jacket off of the bed and hands it to her. Chloe goes into the bathroom to put it on, shaking slightly. Alice starts picking up the things all over the bed.

“I always buy everything in three sizes, ‘cause I never know how much I’ll eat while I’m away,” she turns to look at the redhead whilst she’s speaking.

She grins. “My, my, my… you shine up like a new penny.”

\---

Outside the first class entrance, the sky is purple and shot with orange in the west. Drifting strains of classical music follow along the deck. 

By Edwardian standards, Chloe is stunning. Beautiful from her borrowed hair clips down to her glossy heels.

A steward bows and smartly opens the door to the first class entrance.

“Good evening, ma’am.”

Chloe plays the role smoothly and nods with just the right degree of disdain.

\---

Chloe steps in and her breath was taken away by the splendour spread out before her. Overhead is the enormous glass dome, with a crystal chandelier at its centre. Sweeping down six stories is the first class Grand Staircase, the epitome of opulent naval architecture.

And the people; the women in their floor-length dresses, elaborate hairstyles and abundance of jewellery… the gentlemen in evening dress, standing with one hand at the small of their back, talking quietly.

The redhead descends to the A deck. Several men and women nod a perfunctory greeting. She nods back, keeping it simple. She feels like a spy.

Jesse comes down the stairs, with Sheila on his arm, covered in jewellery. They both walk right past Chloe, neither one recognising her. Jesse nods to her, politely. But the young woman barely has time to be amused.

Because just behind Jesse and Sheila on the stairs is Beca, a vision in red and black, her low-cut dress showing off her neck and shoulders, her arms sheathed in white gloves that come well above the elbow. Chloe is hypnotised by her beauty.

The brunette approaches the other woman. Chloe jokingly imitates the gentlemen’s stance, hand behind her back. Beca extends her gloved hand and the redhead takes it, kissing the back of her fingers. The younger woman flushes, beaming noticeably. She can’t take her eyes off of the older girl.

“I saw that in a nickelodeon once, and I’ve always wanted to do it. I’m not sure why.” Chloe giggles.

Beca smiles. “Jesse, surely you remember Miss Beale?” she asks her fiancé.

Caught off guard, Jesse turns with wide eyes.

“Beale! I didn’t recognise you.”

He studies her, making Chloe slightly uncomfortable and Beca glare.

“Amazing! You could almost pass for a lady,” he says.

\---

The party descends to the reception room on the D deck for dinner. They encounter Alice Brown, looking good in a beaded dress, in her own busty, broad-shouldered way. She grins when she sees Chloe. As they are going into the dining saloon she walks next to her, speaking low.

“Ain’t nothing to it, is there, Chloe?” she asks.

The redhead smiles. “Yeah, you just dress like a pallbearer and keep your nose up.”

“Remember, the only thing they respect is money, so just act like you’ve got a lot of it and you’re in the club,” she advises.

As they enter the swirling throng, Beca leans closer to her, pointing out several notables.

“There’s the Countess of Rothes. And that’s John Jacob Astor… the richest man on the ship. His wife there, Ashley, is my age and in a delicate condition. See how she’s trying to hide it. Quite the scandal,” she says. Nodding towards another couple, she continues. “And over there, that’s Sir Cosmo and Lucille, Lady Duff-Gordon. She designs naughty lingerie, among her many talents. Very popular with the Royals.”

Jesse becomes engrossed in conversation with Cosmo Duff-Gordon and Colonel Gracie, while Sheila, the Countess and Lucille discuss fashion. Beca pivots Chloe smoothly, to show her another couple, dressed impeccably.

“And that’s Benjamin Guggenheim and his mistress, Madame Aubert. Mrs Guggenheim is at home with the children, of course.”

Jesse, meanwhile, is accepting the praise of his male counterparts, who are looking at the brunette like a prize show horse.

“Swanson, she is splendid,” Sir Cosmo says.

Jesse grins. “Thank you.”

“Jesse’s a lucky man. I know him well, and it can only be luck,” Gracie says with a smile.

Sheila steps over, hearing the last. She takes Jesse’s arm, somewhat coquettishly. 

“How can you say that, Colonel? Jesse Swanson is a great catch,” she says rather indignantly.

The entourage strolls towards the dining saloon, where they run into the Astor’s going through the ornate double doors.

Beca speaks up. “J.J., Ashley, I’d like you to meet Chloe Beale.”

Mister Astor shakes her hand. “Good to meet you, Chloe. Are you of the Boston Beales?”

“No, the Chippewa Falls Beales, actually.” she says with a smile.

J.J. nods as if he has heard of the name, then looks puzzled. Ashley stares at Chloe and then whispers to Beca.

“It’s a pity we’re spoken for, isn’t it?” she says lightly.

Beca looks at her with wide eyes, then giggles.

\---

Like a ballroom in a palace, alive and lit by a constellation of chandeliers, full of elegantly dressed people and beautiful music from the famous bandleader Wallace Hartley’s small orchestra. As Beca and Chloe enter and move across the room to their table, Jesse and Sheila beside them.

Inside, Chloe was screaming, but she never faltered. Most of them assumed she was one of them… the partner of a young captain of industry. New money, obviously, but still a member of the club.

Sheila counted on herself to change that.

\---

“Tell us of the accommodations in steerage, Miss Beale. I hear they’re quite good on this ship.” Sheila asks the redhead.

Chloe is seated opposite Beca, who is flanked by Jesse and Thomas Andrews. Also at the table are Alice Brown, Ismay, Colonel Gracie, the Countess, Guggenheim, Madame Aubert and the Astors.

“The best I’ve seen, ma’am. Hardly any rats,” Chloe replies with a polite smile.

Beca motions surreptitiously for Chloe to take her napkin off of her plate.

Jesse decides it’s his time to speak. “Miss Beale is joining us from third class. She was of some assistance to my fiancée last night.”

As the waiter arrives, the arrogant man looks to Chloe and talks to her as if she is a child. 

“This is foie gras. It’s goose liver,” he informs the other woman. The redhead wants to inform him that she does, in fact, know what it is, but decides against it.

We see whispers exchanged. Chloe becomes the subject of furtive glances. Now, they’re all feeling terribly liberal and dangerous.

Guggenheim looks over to his mistress and whispers. “What is Swanson hoping to prove, bringing this… bohemian, up here?”

The waiter who has been working his way around the table looks to Chloe. 

“How do you take your caviar, ma’am?”

“Just a soupcon of lemon,” Jesse answers for her. He turns to Chloe, smiling. “It improves the flavour with champagne.”

Chloe ignores him and turns to the waiter herself. “Actually, no caviar for me, thanks.”

She turns back to Jesse, mirroring his fake expression. “Never did like it much.”

She looks at Beca, poker-faced, and the brunette smiles.

Sheila clears her throat. “And where exactly do you live, Miss Beale?”

“Well, right now my address is the RMS Titanic. After that, I guess I’m on God’s good humour, I guess,” she says truthfully and with a smile.

Salad is served. Chloe reaches for the fish fork. Beca gives her a look and picks up the salad fork, prompting her with her eyes. The redhead changes forks.

“You find that sort of rootless existence appealing, do you?” the older woman says disapprovingly.

Chloe looks up from the beautiful brunette across from her and makes eye contact with Sheila, taking the richer woman off guard. 

“Well… it’s a big world, and I want to see it all before I go. My mother would always talk about wanting to see the ocean. She died in the town she was born in, and never actually did see it. So I realised you can’t wait around, because you never know what hand you’re going to get dealt next. You see, my family died in a fire when I was fifteen, and I’ve been on the road with my best friend, Aubrey, since. Things like that teach you to take life as it comes at you, no matter who you are, man or woman. To make each day count.” When she finished, she breathed in a breath. She wasn’t sure where that had come from.

Alice Brown raises her glass in salute. “Well said, Chloe.”

Colonel Gracie does the same. “Hear, hear.”

Beca raises her glass, looking at Chloe with a poorly hidden look of adoration in her eyes.

“To making it count.”

Sheila annoyed that Chloe has scored a point, presses her further.

“How is it that you have the means to travel, Miss Beale?”

“I work my way from place to place. Steamers and such. I won my ticket on Titanic here in a lucky hand at poker,” she glances at Beca. “A very lucky hand.”

Gracie nods. “All life is a game of luck.”

Jesse shakes his head. “A real person makes their own luck, Archie.”

The young brunette notices that Thomas Andrews, sitting next to her, is writing in his notebook, completely ignoring the conversation.

“Mister Andrews, what are you doing? I see you everywhere writing in this little book,” she grabs it and reads. “Increase number of screws in hat hooks from two to three,” she laughs. “You build the biggest ship in the world and this preoccupies you?”

Andrews smiles sheepishly.

Ismay smiles. “He knows every rivet in her, don’t you Thomas?”

“All three million of them,” he grins.

“His blood and soul are in the ship. She may be mine on paper, but in the eyes of God she belongs to him,” Ismay announces to the table.

“Your ship is a wonder, Mister Andrews. Truly,” Beca says to him with a smile.

“Thank you, Rebecca,” he replies.

\---

Dessert has been served and a waiter arrives with cigars in a humidor on a wheeled cart. The men start clipping ends and lighting.

Speaking in a low tone to Chloe, Beca explains what happens now.

“Next it’ll be brandies in the smoking room.”

Gracie stands and looks to the gentlemen at the table. “Will you join me for a brandy, gentlemen?” he asks.

Beca continues. “Now they retreat into a cloud of smoke and congratulate each other on being masters of the universe.”

Chloe almost giggles at the clear disdain in the brunette’s voice.

Sheila looks to Chloe suddenly, and the humour leaves her face.

“So, will you be joining us, Miss Beale? Or do you have someplace else to be?”

“Sorry, but I have to be heading back. I promised my friend Aubrey I would tell her about my evening,” she explains with a polite smile.

When Sheila nods and turns around, Beca grabs Chloe’s hands and looks into her eyes, pleading.

“Chloe, must you go?” she asks.

The redhead grins. “It’s time for my coach to turn back into a pumpkin.”

As the brunette holds her hands, she slips a tiny folded message into her hands.

Sheila, scowling, watches her walk away across the enormous room. Beca surreptitiously opens the note below table level.

‘Make it count. Meet me at the clock.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one came out a little longer than I was expecting. Oh well, I guess that's a good thing?  
> Even though I'm the one writing this, I literally hate Jesse so much.   
> Until next time!


	9. The Real Party

Beca crosses the A deck foyer, sighting Chloe at the landing above. Overhead is the crystal dome. The redhead has her back to her, studying the ornate clock with its carved figures of Honour and Glory. It softly strikes the hour.

The younger woman heads up the sweeping staircase towards her. Chloe turns at the noise of approaching footsteps and smiles as she notices Beca.  
“Want to go to a real party?” she asks the rich girl.

\---

In the third class general room, the area is alive with music and raucous laughter. A mismatched band is gathered near the upright piano, honking out lively stomping music with a fiddle, accordion and a tambourine. People of all ages are dancing, drinking beer and wine, smoking, laughing, even brawling.

Tom hands Beca a pint of stout and she hoists it. Chloe, meanwhile, dances with 5-year-old Cora Allen, or tries to, with the young girl jumping around. As the tune ends, Beca leans down to the little girl. 

“May I cut in, miss?” she asks with a smile. The young girl giggles and nods, looking to Chloe.

Chloe grins at her. “You’re still my best girl, Cora,” she informs the girl as she scampers off.

Beca and Chloe face each other. The brunette is trembling as her partner takes her right hand in her own left. The redhead’s other hand slides to the small of her back. It is an electrifying moment.

“I don’t know the steps,” Beca says, worry tinting the edge of her voice.

“Just move with me. Don’t think,” the bubbly girl winks at her.

The music starts and they are off. A little awkward at first, as they start to get into it. Beca grins at Chloe as they start to get the rhythm of the steps.

“Wait, stop!” the rich girl exclaims, laughing. She bends down, pulling off her high heeled shoes, and flings them to Tom. Then she grabs the older girl and they plunge back into the fray, dancing faster as the music speeds up.

As the night moves on, the room becomes wonderfully rowdy and rollicking. A table gets knocked over as a drunk crashes into it. And in the middle of it, Beca dancing with Chloe in her stocking feet. The steps are fast and they shine with sweat as they laugh together. Space opens around them, and people watch them, clapping as the band plays faster and faster.

Next to them, Aubrey and Stacie are dancing with fervour. The blonde whirls her partner, who then responds by whirling her back. Aubrey’s eyes go wide as she realises that the brunette is just as strong as she is.

The tune ends in a mad rush. Chloe steps away from Beca with a flourish, allowing them both to take a bow. Exhilarated and slightly tipsy, the brunette does a graceful ballet ployer, feet turned out perfectly. Everyone laughs and applauds. She is a hit with the steerage folks, who’ve never had a lady party with them.

The two women move to a table, flushed and sweaty. Beca grabs Aubrey’s cigarette and takes a big drag. She’s feeling cocky. Aubrey is grinning, holding hands with Stacie.  
Chloe looks to her best friend. “How’re you two doing?”

“I didn’t expect us to be walking onto this ship and have this much fun,” she replies with a wink.

Tom walks up with a pint for each of them. Beca chugs hers, showing off.

The others stare at her.

“What, you think a first class girl can’t drink?” she laughs.

Everybody else is dancing again, and a drunk crashes into Tom, who accidentally sloshes his beer over Beca’s dress. She laughs, not caring. But Tom lunges, grabbing the other man and wheeling him around.

“You stupid bastard!” he growls.

The drunk comes around, his fists coming up… and Chloe leaps into the middle of it, pushing them apart.

“Boys, boys! Have I ever told you the one about the Swede and the Irishman going to the whorehouse?” she asks, with a look of surprise from Beca.

Tom stands there, chest puffed up. Then he grins and claps the other man on the shoulder.

“So, you think you’re big, tough men? Let’s see you do this,” the brunette says.

In her stocking feet she assumes a ballet stance, arms raised, and goes up on point, taking her entire weight on the tip of her toes. The two men gape at her incredible muscle control. She comes back down, then her face screws up in pain. She grabs one foot, hopping around.

“Ow! I haven’t done that in years!” she exclaims.

Chloe catches her as she loses her balance, and everyone cracks up.

The door to the well deck is open a few inches as Donald watches through the gap. He sees Chloe holding Beca, both of them laughing.  
He closes the door.

\---

The stars blaze overhead, so bright and clear you can see the Milky Way. Beca and Chloe walk along the row of lifeboats. Still giddy from the party, they are singing a popular song, ‘Come Josephine in my Flying Machine’.

“Come Josephine in my flying machine,

And it’s up she goes! Up she goes!

In the air she goes. Where? There she goes!” they sing together.

They fumble the words and break down laughing. They have reached the First Class entrance, but don’t go straight in, not wanting the evening to end. Through the doors the sound of the ship’s orchestra wafts gently. Beca grabs a davit and leans back, staring at the cosmos.

“Isn’t is amazing? So big and endless,” she says, looking up to the sky.

She goes to the rail and leans on it. “They’re such small people, Chloe… my crowd. They think they’re giants on this earth, but they’re not even dust in God’s eye. They live inside this little tiny champagne bubble, and someday the bubble is going to burst.”

Chloe leans on the rail next to her, her hand just touching Beca’s. It is the slightest contact imaginable, yet all either one of them can feel is that square inch of skin where their hands are touching.

The redhead shakes her head. “You’re not one of them. There’s been a mistake.”

“A mistake?”

“Uh huh. You got mailed to the wrong address.”

The younger woman laughs. “I did, didn’t I?”

She looks up suddenly and points. “Look! A shooting star!”

Chloe nods. “That was a long one. My father used to say that whenever you saw one, it was a soul going to heaven.”

“I like that. Aren’t we supposed to wish on it?”

Chloe looks at her, and finds that they are suddenly very close together. It would be so easy to move another couple of inches, to kiss her. Beca seems to be thinking the same thing.

“What would you wish for?” Chloe whispers, not wanting to break the moment.

After a beat, the brunette pulls back.

“Something I can’t have,” she smiles sadly. “Goodnight, Chloe. And thank you.”

She leaves the rail and hurries through the First Class entrance.

“Beca!”

Chloe watches her leave, but the doors bang shut, and she is gone. Back to her world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! I'm sorry I didn't update yesterday. I felt like crap and had literally no motivation to do anything. But I'm back now! (Hooray)  
> I'll try to get two chapters out today to make up for it, and if I can, three.  
> Until next time!


	10. The Confrontation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gah! I'm so sorry I've been dead lately and that I haven't updated. Coursework literally collapsed on me and I needed to have a major breather to sort it all out. But I'm back now!   
> Also, I'm sorry this chapter is shorter than the rest. I'll try to get some more out soon.

It is Sunday, April 14, 1912. A bright clear day. Sunlight is splashing across the promenade. Beca and Jesse are having breakfast in silence. The tension is almost palpable. Jessica Smith, in her maid’s uniform, pours the coffee and goes inside, eager to escape the stuffy air.

“I had hoped you would come to me last night,” Jesse says, not looking up from his plate.

Beca scowls at her own. “I was tired.”

“Yes. Your festivities below deck were no doubt exhausting,” he sneers at her.

The brunette stiffens.

“I see you had your puppy of a manservant follow me,” she quips.

“You will never behave like that again! Do you understand?” the man shouts.

“I’m not some servant in your mills that you can command! I am your fiancée-“

Jesse explodes, sweeping the breakfast china off of the table with a crash. He moves to her in one sudden movement, glowering over her and gripping the sides of her chair, so she is trapped between her arms.

“Yes! You are! And my wife… in practice, if not yet by law. So you will honour me, as a wife is meant to honour their partner! I will not be made out as a fool! Is this in any way unclear?” he practically screams.

Beca shrinks back slightly in her chair. She sees Jessica, frozen, partway through the door bringing some orange juice. Jesse follows his fiancée’s glance and straightens up. He stalks past the maid, entering the stateroom.

The young woman shakes her head. “We… had a little argument. I’m sorry, Jess,” she apologises.

Jessica looks down towards the mess Jesse made in his anger.

“Don’t worry about cleaning that up, Jess. I’ll get one of the ship’s hands to do it. You have enough to do today,” she says to her friend with a smile. The maid smiles back, and turns back towards the room.

\---

Beca is dressed for the day, and is in the middle of helping her stepmother with her corset. The tight bindings do not inhibit Sheila’s fury at all.

“You are not to see that girl again, do you understand me, Rebecca? I forbid it!” 

The younger woman has her knee at the base of her stepmother’s back and is pulling the corset strings with both hands.

“Oh, stop it. You’ll give yourself a nosebleed,” she says sarcastically.

Sheila pulls away from her, and crosses to the door, locking it.

She wheels on her stepdaughter. “Beca, this is not a game! Our situation is practically dire. You know the money’s gone!”

Beca rolls her eyes. “Of course I know it’s gone. You remind me every day!”

“Your father left us nothing but a legacy of bad debts hidden by a good name. And that name is the only card we have to play.” 

The young brunette turns her around and grabs the corset strings again. Sheila sucks in her waist and Beca pulls.

The older woman continues. “I don’t understand you. It’s a fine match with Swanson, and it’ll ensure we don’t end up like the steerage.”  
Hurt and lost, Beca slumps her shoulders slightly. 

“How can you put all of this on me?” she asks despondently.

“Do you want to see me working as a seamstress? Is that what you want? Do you want to see our fine things sold at an auction, our memories scattered to the winds? My God, Beca, how can you be so selfish?” Sheila exclaims.

The brunette shakes her head. “It’s so unfair. I hate him!”

“Of course it’s unfair! We might as well have nothing.”

Beca pulls the corset tighter. 

\---

At the divine service in the first class dining saloon, Captain Smith is leading a group in the hymn “Almighty Father Strong to Save”. Beca and Sheila sing in the middle of the group.

Donald stands well back, keeping an eye on Beca. As much as he doesn’t want to, he has been instructed by Jesse to keep Chloe and the brunette apart, after he accidentally let out what he had seen on the lower deck. He notices a commotion at the entry doors. Chloe is being held back there by two stewards. She is dressed in her third-class clothes, a simple khaki-brown dress with a comfortable leather corset around her waist. She stands there, cardigan in hand, looking out of place.

The steward moves her back again. “Look, you’re not supposed to be in here,” he says.

“I was just here last night… don’t you remember?” she asks, astounded. Seeing Donald coming towards them, she continues. “He’ll tell you.”

As Donald approaches, he addresses the redhead. 

“Mr Swanson and Mrs Dewitt-Mitchell continue to me most appreciative of your assistance the other night. They asked me to give you this in gratitude-“ he holds out two twenty dollar bills, which Chloe refuses to take.

“I don’t want money, I-“

Donald cuts her off. “-and also to remind you that you hold a third class ticket and your presence here is no longer appropriate.” 

Chloe spots Beca, but she doesn’t see her.

“I just need to talk to Beca for a-“

Giving the twenties to the stewards, the man looks back to the young woman, a hint of an apologetic look in his eye.

“Gentlemen, please see that Miss Beale gets back to where she belongs. And that she stays there.”

The stewards’ eyes gleam at the money. “Yes sir!” the one who had been pushing Chloe back says. He turns to the steerage woman. “Come along, you,” he says gruffly.

Inside the saloon, no one notices the actions being taken outside. Beca and the others continue to sing the hymn.

“O hear us when we cry to thee, for those in peril on the sea.”


	11. The Tour

In the Edwardian Gymnasium, there are many different exercise machines. A woman pedals a stationary bicycle in a long dress, looking ridiculous. Thomas Andrews is leading a small tour group, including Beca, Sheila and Jesse. Jesse is working the oars of a stationary rowing machine with a well-trained stroke.

“Reminds me of my Harvard days,” he says wistfully.

John Smith, the gym instructor, is a slightly stiff-looking middle aged man in white flannels. His partner, Gail Abernathy-Mckadden, is a bouncy woman, much more eager to show off their modern equipment. She hits a switch and a machine with a saddle on it starts to undulate. Sheila puts her hand on it, curious.

“The electric horse is very popular. We even have an electric camel,” the bouncy young woman informs the group. She turns to Sheila, who is trying to get a disinterested Beca to pay attention. “Care to try your hand at the rowing, ma’am?” she asks politely.

Sheila laughs. “Don’t be absurd. I can’t think of a skill I should likely need less.”

“The next stop on our tour will be the bridge. This way, please,” Andrews motions to the group.

Beca sighs. This was going to be a long day.

\---

Chloe, walking with determination, is followed closely by Tom and Aubrey. She quickly climbs the steps to the B deck and steps over the gate separating third from the second class.

“She’s a goddess among mortal men, there’s no denying. But she’s in another world, Chloe, forget her. She’s closed the door,” Tom says with a look of worry for his new friend.

The redhead moves furtively to the wall below the A deck promenade, aft.

“It was them, not her,” she implores, only half-concentrating. Glancing along the deck, she motions to the other two. “Ready… go.”

Tom shakes his head resignedly and puts his hands together, crouching down. Chloe steps onto the Irish man’s hands and gets boosted up to the next deck, where she scrambles nimbly over the railing, onto the first class deck.

Tom looks to Aubrey. “She’s not bein’ logical, I tell you.”

The blonde shakes her head. “Love isn’t logical.”

\---

A woman is playing with her daughter, who is spinning a top with a string. The woman’s cardigan and large hat are sitting on a deck nearby. Chloe emerges from behind one of the huge deck cranes and calmly picks up the items. She walks away, slipping into the cardigan over her borrowed first class dress, and places the large-brimmed hat on her head. She thanks the Gods that they match and that the hate covers her face slightly, enough to not be recognised. At a distance, anyone who saw her last night wouldn’t know it was her.

\---

A young Junior Wireless Operator hustles into the bridge and skirts around Andrews’ tour group to hand a Marconi-gram to Captain Smith.

“Another ice warning, sir. This one from the ‘Baltic’.” He informs worriedly.

“Thank you, Sparks,” Smith says as he glances at the message, then nonchalantly puts it in his pocket. He nods reassuringly to Beca and the group, who had been watching.

“Not to worry, it’s quite normal for this time of year. In fact, we’re speeding up. I’ve just ordered the last boilers to be lit,” he explains to the group.

Andrews scowls slightly before motioning the group towards the door. They exit just as a second officer comes out of the chartroom, stopping next to a first officer.

“Did we ever find those binoculars for the lookouts?” he asks.

The other officer shakes his head. “Haven’t seen them since Southampton,” he says.

\---

Andrews leads the group back from the bridge along the boat deck. Beca has been quiet until now, figuring something out in her head.

“Mr Andrews, I did the sum in my head, and with the number of lifeboats times the capacity of people you mentioned… forgive me for saying this, but it seems there aren’t enough for everyone on board,” she says inquisitively.

Andrews nods. “About half, actually. Rebecca, you miss nothing, do you? In fact, I put in these new type davits, which can take an extra row of boats here,” he gestures along the deck. “But it was thought… by some… that the deck would look too cluttered. So I was over-ruled.”

“Waste of deck space as it is, on an unsinkable ship!” Jesse exclaims, slapping the side of the boat.

“Sleep soundly, young Rebecca. I have built you a good ship, strong and true. She’s all the lifeboat you’ll need,” Andrews says calmly.

As they are passing by the lifeboats, a lady turns from the rail and walks up behind the group. It is Chloe. She taps Beca on the arm and she turns, gasping. The redhead motions and Beca cuts away from the group toward a door which Chloe holds open. They duck into the gymnasium.

Chloe closes the door behind her and glances out through the ripple-glass window to the starboard rail, where the gym instructors seem to be sniping at each other whilst coaching a group of people. Beca and the redhead are alone in the room.

“Chloe, this is impossible. I can’t see you,” the brunette says.

The older woman takes her by the shoulders.

“Beca, you’re no picnic. You’re a spoiled brat sometimes, but under that, you have a strong, pure heart, and you’re the most amazingly astoundingly girl I’ve ever known and-“

“Chloe, I-“

“No, wait. Let me try to get this out. You’re amazing… and I know I have nothing to offer you, Beca. I know that. But I’m involved now. You jump, I jump, remember? I can’t turn away without knowing you’re going to be alright,” Chloe practically begs.

The brunette feels the tears coming to her eyes. Chloe is so open and real, not like anyone she has ever known.

“You’re making this very hard. I’ll be fine. Really.”

The redhead shakes her head. “I don’t think so. They’ve got you in a glass jar like some butterfly, and you’re going to die if you don’t break out. Maybe not right away, because you’re strong. But sooner or later that fire in you is going to go out.”

“It’s not up to you to save me, Chloe.”

“You’re right. Only you can do that,” she agrees.

“Look, I have to get back, they’ll miss me. Please, Chloe, for both our sakes, leave me alone.” She turns away from the other girl.

She misses Chloe fall to her knees in defeat, tears rolling down her cheeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, I hated writing this part! I promise it won't stay like this. I'll try to get the next chapter up as soon as I can!  
> Until next time!


	12. Reunion

The most elegant room on the ship is easily the first class lounge; it’s designed like Louis Quinze Versaille, with elaborate gold furnishing all over the walls. Beca sits of a divan, with a group of other women arrayed around her. Sheila, the Countess Rothes and Lady Duff-Gordon are taking tea. Beca is silent and as still as a porcelain figurine as the conversation washes around her.

“Of course the invitations had to be sent back to the printers twice. And the bridesmaids’ dresses! Let me tell you what an odyssey those have been…” Sheila goes on.

As the young brunette looks at all of the stiff women around her, she thinks back to when she was young. Four years old, wearing white gloves, daintily picking up a cookie. She remembers her mother correcting her on her posture and the way she holds the teacup. She’d tried so hard to please, to adapt to the relentless conditioning of being made into an Edwardian geisha.

Coming back from her thoughts, Beca calmly and deliberately turns her teacup over, spilling tea all over her dress.

“Oh, look what I’ve done,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “Sorry, everyone, I must go and get myself cleaned up.”

After she has arrived back in her room and tidied herself up after the incident, she knows where she wants to go.

\---

Chloe leans on the railing at the bow, right on the apex. She closes her eyes, letting the chill wind clear her head of her troubled thoughts.

She hears a voice behind her.

“Hello, Chloe.”

The redhead turns and Beca is standing there, in a simple yet elegant dress, looking at her rather sheepishly. 

“I changed my mind,” the brunette says.

Chloe grins at her, her eyes drinking the rich girl in. Beca’s cheeks are red with the chill wind, and her eyes are sparkling like the water below. Her hair is blowing wildly around her face.

She continues. “I ran into Aubrey. She said that you might be up-“

The older woman cuts her off. “Shh. Come here.”

She puts her hands on Beca’s waist as if she is going to kiss her.

“Close your eyes,” she whispers in the rich girl’s ear.

She does, and Chloe turns her to face forward, the way the ship is going. She presses her gently to the rail, standing right behind her. She then takes her two hands and raises them until she is standing with her arms outstretched on each side. Beca is going along with her. When the redhead lowers her hands, the other woman’s arms stay up… like wings.

“Okay, open them,” Chloe whispers into her ear, not wanting to break the moment.

Beca gasps. There is nothing in her field of vision but water. It’s like there is no ship underneath them at all, but just the two of them soaring. The Atlantic unrolls towards her, a hammered copper shield under a dusk sky. There is only the wind and the hiss of the water fifty feet below.

The brunette laughs. “It’s like flying!”

She leans forward, arching her back. Chloe puts her hands on her waist to steady her.

“I’ve wanted to show you this for a while,” she giggles into her ear. “Your first taste of real freedom, right?”

Beca closes her eyes again, feeling herself floating weightless far above the sea. She smiles almost dreamily, then leans back, gently pressing her back against Chloe’s chest. She pushes forwards slightly against her.

Slowly, the redhead raises her hands, arms outstretched, and they meet Beca’s, fingertips gently touching. Then their fingers intertwine. Moving slowly, their fingers caress through and around each other like the bodies of two lovers.

Chloe tips her face forward into the flowing brown hair, letting the scent of her wash over until her cheek is against her ear.

Beca turns her head until their lips are almost touching. She lowers her arms, turning further until she finds the other woman’s mouth with hers. The redhead wraps her arms around her from behind, and they kiss like this; with Beca’s head turned and tilted back, surrendering to her, to the emotion, to the inevitable. They kiss slowly and tremendously, and then with building passion. As they turn their bodies to pull each other flush against one another, hands roam from waists to faces, to locking in each other’s hair as the kiss deepens into the sunset.

Together, they seem to merge into one force of power and optimism, lifting, buoying her forward on the journey, soaring onward into a night without fear.

In the crow’s nest, high above and behind them, two lookouts nudge each other and point down to the figures embracing on the deck below.

“Wish I had those bleedin’ binoculars right about now,” one of them jokes.

\---

In Rose’s suite, Chloe is overwhelmed by the opulence of the room. She sets her sketchbook and drawing materials down on the marble table. Beca looks at her from across the room.

“Will this light do? Don’t artists need good light?” she asks.

The redhead grins slightly and puts on a bad French accent. “’Zat is true, I am not used to working in such ‘oreeble conditions!” 

Beca laughs as Chloe notices the paintings she has brought with her onto the ship. 

“Hey… this is Monet, right?” she says as she crouches next to the paintings that are stacked against the wall. “Isn’t he great… the use of colour? I actually saw him once, through a hole in this garden fence in someplace warm. I don’t remember much else; it was a pretty crazy trip,” she informs her partner, studying the painting one more time.

The brunette goes into the adjoining walk-in wardrobe closet. Chloe sees her go to the safe and start working the combination, fascinated.

“Jesse insists on lugging this ridiculous thing everywhere,” she sighs.

“Should we be expecting him anytime soon?” 

“Not as long as the cigars and brandy hold out.”

With a clunk, she unlocks the safe. Glancing up, she meets the older woman’s eyes in the mirror behind the safe. Beca opens it and removes the necklace, then holds it out to Chloe who takes it nervously.

“What is it? A sapphire?” she asks, full of intrigue.

The rich woman shakes her head. “A diamond. A very rare diamond called the Heart of the Ocean.”

Chloe gazes at wealth beyond her comprehension.

Beca continues.

“I want you to draw me like that French girl of yours, in your book. Wearing this.”

The redhead looks at her.

“Wearing only this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually updated during the week! True, it's nearly midnight and I've been alternating between listening to the two new Panic! songs and homework, but I decided to get this chapter out too.


	13. A Date to Remember

In the expensive bedroom, Beca draws the ridiculous butterfly comb out of her hair. She shakes her head and her hair falls free around her shoulders.

In the sitting room, Chloe is laying out her pencils like surgical tools. Her worn sketchbook is open and ready to use. She looks up as the brunette comes into the room, wearing what looks like a very expensive silk gown.

“The last thing I need is another picture of me looking like a china doll. As a paying customer, I expect only the best from you, Beale,” the brunette says as she turns to Chloe.

She hands the other girl a dime and steps back, parting the gown. The blue stone lies on her pale chest. Her heart is pounding as she slowly lowers the robe.

The redhead looks so stricken, it’s almost comical when her jaw drops as the gown falls to the floor.

Beca circles the divan, looking at the older woman with something hidden in her eyes. 

“Tell me when it looks right to you,” she offers as she poses on the divan, settling almost like a cat into a position for the drawing.

Chloe doesn’t speak for a moment, too caught up in her surroundings to respond. As she comes back to her senses she realises that she has actually been spoken to.

“Uh… just bend your left leg a little and… and lower your head. Eyes to me. That’s it,” she stumbles.

The redhead starts to sketch. Not a minute after, she drops her pencil and stifles a laugh.

Beca grins. “I think you’re blushing, Miss Big Artiste. I can’t imagine Monsieur Monet blushing,” she says with a laugh.

Chloe almost rolls her eyes as she wipes building sweat off of her face.

“He does landscapes.”

Her eyes come to look at the brunette over the top edge of her sketchpad. Despite her nervousness, she draws with sure strokes, and what emerges is quite clearly the best thing she has ever done. Her pose is languid, her hands beautiful, and her eyes radiate her energy, almost captivating the waves of the ocean inside them.

\---

As Chloe signs the drawing, Beca, wearing her kimono again is leaning on her shoulder, watching.

She gazes at the drawing. The redhead has x-rayed her soul.

“Can you date it? I always want to remember this night,” she asks.

Chloe does; 4/14/1912. Meanwhile, the younger woman scribbles a note on a piece of Titanic stationery. She accepts the drawing from her partner and crosses to the safe in the wardrobe.

She puts the diamond back in the safe, placing the drawing and the note on top of it as she closes the door with a clunk.

\---

Donald enters from the Palm Court through the revolving door to the first class smoking room towards Jesse. A fire is blazing in the marble fireplace, and the usual rich men are playing cards, drinking and talking. Jesse sees Donald and detaches from his group, coming to him.

“None of the stewards have seen her,” Donald informs his boss.

Jesse almost growls as he looks back at Donald. “This is ridiculous. Find her. There’s only so many places a person can be on a ship.”

\---

Titanic is gliding across an unnatural sea, almost as black and as calm as a pool of oil. The ship’s lights are mirrored almost perfectly in the water’s reflection. The sky is brilliant with stars. A meteor traces a bright line across the heavens.

On the bridge, Captain Smith peers out at the blackness ahead of the ship. One of the quartermasters brings him a cup of hot tea with lemon. It steams in the bitter cold of the open bridge. An officer is next to him, staring out at the sheet of black glass the Atlantic has become.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a flat calm, in twenty-four years at sea,” the young officer says to Smith.

The captain nods. “Yes, like a garden pond surrounded by natural windbreaks. Not a breath of wind,”

“It makes the ‘bergs harder to see, with no breaking water at the base,”

“Mmm, yes. Well, I’m off. Maintain speed and heading, if you will,” the man orders as he retreats.

The officer nods. “Yes, sir,”

Smith turns back. “And wake me, of course, if anything becomes the slightest degree doubtful.”

He walks back to his quarters.

\---

Beca, fully dressed, returns to the sitting room in her suite. Suddenly, there’s the sound of a key in the lock. The brunette takes Chloe’s hand and leads her silently through the bedrooms. Donald enters by the sitting room door.

“Miss Rebecca? Hello?” he calls out to the room.

He hears a door opening and goes through Jesse’s room toward hers.

Beca and Chloe come out of her stateroom, closing the door. The younger woman leads them quickly along the corridor towards the B deck foyer. They are halfway across the open space when the sitting room door opens in the corridor and Donald comes out. The valet sees Chloe with Beca and hustles after them, a small grin forming on his face.

Beca quickly looks at the redhead. “Come on!”

They both break into a run, surprising the few ladies and gentlemen about. The rich woman leads him past the stairs to the bank of elevators. They run into one, shocking the operator.

“Take us down. Quickly, quickly!” she says hurriedly.

The operator scrambles to comply. Chloe even helps him close the steel gate. Donald runs up as the lift starts to descend. He grabs one of the bars of the gate to stop himself falling into it. Beca makes a very rude and unladylike gesture and laughs as the valet disappears above. The operator gapes at her.

As they disappear, Donald can’t help but smile to himself. As much as he doesn’t want to follow them, it’s his job. But for all of his time of knowing Beca, he has never seen her so happy. He gives himself a vow that push comes to shove, he will do his best to help the unlikely couple for the future of this journey across the Atlantic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! School has been stressing me out lately, and only having a little over a month until the beginning of my GCSE's has been really eating into my time. I promise that I'll do my best to keep up with adding chapters from now on.  
> I'm also sorry for how short this one is. Hopefully, I'll be able to get the next one up tomorrow.  
> Until next time!


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